15. 20120728: brass, race, fatigue, hot plate

Commanders inspected rooms with fervor in a race to get the barracks up to standard before the top brass arrived in pressed fatigues to inspire morale in a group of soldiers wherein the only loss of spirit was a result of their confiscated hot plates.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

14. 20120727: rumor, medicine, stars

Rumor spread like wildfire saying that you had let the devil possess you, and that's why you could never, and would never, come back. But I waited for you every night under the oak tree. I knew you'd come back to take your buried treasure: a lunch pail filled with decaying clippings from forbidden publications, a collection of snail shells and pebbles, an old medicine bottle filled with sand, and an indecent photograph of your mother wearing almost nothing, laughing.

And when you came to claim your treasure I could see that your dark eyes that had once sparkled like stars burned with hellfire.

Then you said, "I've seen it, John. The ocean. The water is so cool, and the sun is so bright. Did you know the sun is just another star, but closer? Imagine, John, all those stars, burning."

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13. 20120726: dragon, word, toilet paper

Word on the street was that Mr. Li had called the cops on Ronny Hooser's party. So they, the young, the fearless, and the righteous, had silently gathered in his yard to TP his home.

As if, despite the muffled shuffles of their feet and the hushed tones of their words, the energy of their quiet concentration blared on an alternate level, Li stirred from his sleep to see toilet paper streaming across his bedroom window.

Thin paper, backlit by the soft exterior lights of his house, danced like a dragon ascending, rising up towards the heavens. So with awe Mr. Li witnessed the beauty of youth's fearsome vindictive spirit.

To the list of other pieces inspired by random words.

12. 20120725: old man, hammer, forest

After Mom died it was just me and Pops, Mom's old man. She died when I was eight. I never knew my father. He knocked her up and died in the war before I was born. At least I had Pops.

The night after Mom's funeral I couldn't sleep. A lot of things kept me from sleeping, but there was only one thing that night that kept me awake.

From the woods behind our house I heard violent sounds of a beast unlike that I had ever heard before. Howling. Thrashing. Thumping. Crashing. Crying. It sounded like someone, or something, was being attacked. Dying.

Double Act

Cecil had just sat down to take his first bite of his spaghetti dinner when a knock at the door made him flinch. The neat coil of noodles around his fork dropped to his plate splashing a bit of sauce onto his shirt.

He hadn’t been expecting anyone.